You are here

Freezing Your Eggs in Kentucky

As more and more women are choosing to delay childbearing, egg freezing has been growing as a popular option.

Egg freezing is a fertility preservation procedure in which eggs are harvested and frozen when they are healthy and viable so they can be thawed and used for a pregnancy in the future.

Egg freezing can be done for social reasons—say, if you haven’t yet met the right partner—or for medical reasons, like if you must undergo fertility-damaging chemotherapy treatment.

How Does Egg Freezing Work?

Because egg quality declines as you grow older, egg freezing is most successful if they are harvested when you are in your 20s or early 30s.

The egg freezing process begins like an IVF cycle. After your fertility doctor runs some tests like ultrasounds and lab work, you’ll start on fertility drugs. This helps you produce multiple eggs. The ovarian stimulation process will take a couple of weeks.

Then you’ll be given a trigger shot, and about 36 hours after that, your eggs will be ready for harvesting. This will take place while you’re under anesthesia, so it won’t hurt. Your fertility doctor will use an ultrasound-guided hollow needle to suction out any egg follicles.

Once harvested, your eggs will be frozen through a process called vitrification, a flash-freeze technique that prevents the formation of potentially quality-damaging ice crystals.

Saving on Egg Freezing

Egg freezing can be expensive—depending on your location and the fertility clinic, it can range from a low of $6,500 to a high of $18,000.